Whitney Denise Petway, 27, was shot to death on June 29, 2020, at the WoodSpring Suites hotel in Gastonia, North Carolina. She was staying there with a sometime boyfriend, Zkevis Jarta Williams, and the couple’s relationship had multiple reported incidents of domestic violence. Williams told authorities the two argued and struggled over a gun that discharged; prosecutors said the killing fit a pattern of abuse and introduced evidence of prior assaults.

Williams, 28 at the time, was arrested after he went to the motel front desk and confessed on the morning of June 30, 2020. Prosecutors cited earlier incidents, including a June 2020 episode involving resisting arrest and assault on a female, and testimony that Williams had pushed Petway down stairs and admitted blacking out during an assault. Family members described Whitney as a U.S. Army veteran who had been working on a business with her brother Derrick and remembered her as a close confidante.

A jury found Williams guilty of first-degree murder in May 2023. Did anyone who knew Whitney or saw her and Williams in Gastonia in June 2020 notice signs of escalating violence?